While the City Sleeps

While the City Sleeps is a 1956 American film noir directed by Fritz Lang and starring Dana Andrews, Rhonda Fleming, George Sanders, Howard Duff, Thomas Mitchell, Vincent Price, John Drew Barrymore and Ida Lupino. Written by Casey Robinson, the newspaper drama was based on The Bloody Spur by Charles Einstein, which was inspired by the case of Chicago serial killer William Heirens (a.k.a. the "Lipstick Killer"). (The film even alludes to the crimes of Heirens in the script's dialogue, suggesting that the film's antagonist, also known as the "Lipstick Killer", is a copycat killer.) Five decades after the film's release, critic Dennis Schwartz wrote, "Fritz Lang ('M') directs his most under-appreciated great film, more a social commentary than a straight crime drama." Plot The film opens with a vicious killer attacking an innocent woman in her apartment. It soon becomes apparent this murderer is a serial killer. The scene switches to elderly Amos Kyne, a news media mogul, who is on his deathbed (in his office) talking to the men in charge of his company's divisions: wire-service chief Mark Loving, newspaper chief Jon Day Griffith, and television chief "Honest" Harry Kritzer; Edward Mobley, TV anchorman for Kyne Inc., is also present. After Kyne dismisses the others, he talks with Mobley about his concerns regarding his empire after his death; Mobley has refused the top job many times and does so again during this conversation. He is due on the air in four minutes and walks over to turn on Kyne's TV. When he looks back, he sees the old man has died. After Kyne's death, the corporation goes to his son, Walter Kyne, whom his father resented and has never allowed into the business.